Chapter XI: Part 11

=Description=—The ovary of _Vitis vinifera_ is 2-celled with 2 ovules in each cell; it develops into a succulent, pedicellate berry of spherical or ovoid form, in which the cells are obliterated and some of the seeds generally abortive. As the fruit is not articulated with the rachis or the rachis with the branch, it does not drop at maturity but remains attached to the plant, on which, provided there is sufficient solar heat, it gradually withers and dries: such fruits are called _Raisins of the sun_. Various methods are adopted to facilitate the drying of the fruit, such as dipping the bunches in boiling water or in a lye of wood ashes, or twisting or partially severing the stalk,—the effect of each operation being to arrest or destroy the vitality of the tissues. The drying is performed by exposure to the sun, sometimes supplemented by artificial heat.

The raisins commonly found in the shops are the produce of Spain and Asia Minor, and are sold either in entire bunches or removed from the stalk. The former kind, known as _Muscatel Raisins_ and imported from Malaga, are dried and packed with great care for use as a dessert fruit. The latter kind, which includes the _Valencia Raisins_ of Spain, and the _Eleme_, _Chesme_ and stoneless _Sultana Raisins_ of Smyrna, are used for culinary purposes. For pharmacy, Valencia raisins are generally employed.

=Microscopic Structure=—The outer layer or skin of the berry is made up of small tabular cells loaded with a reddish granular matter, which on addition of an alcoholic solution of perchloride of iron assumes a dingy green hue. The interior parenchyme exhibits large, thin-walled, loose cells containing an abundance of crystals (bitartrate of potassium and sugar). There are also some fibro-vascular bundles traversing the tissue in no regular order.

=Chemical Composition=—The pulp abounds in grape sugar and cream of tartar, each of which in old raisins may be found crystallized in nodular masses; it also contains gum and malic acid. The seeds afford 15 to 18 per cent. of a bland fixed oil, which is occasionally extracted. Fitz[648] has shown that it consists of the glycerides of _Erucic Acid_, C₂₂H₄₂O₂, stearic acid, and palmitic acid, the first-named acid largely prevailing. The crystals of erucic acid melt at 34° C.; by means of fused potash they may be resolved into arachic acid, C₂₀H₄₀O₂, and acetic acid, C₂H₄O₂.

The seeds further contain 5 to 6 per cent. of tannic acid, which also exists in the skin of the fruit. The latter is likewise the seat of chlorophyll and other colouring matter.

=Commerce=—The consumption of raisins in Great Britain is very large and is increasing. The imports into the United Kingdom have been as follows:—

1870. 1871. 1872. 1876.
365,418 427,056 617,418 583,860 cwt.
val. £593,527. val. £707,344. val. £1,149,337. val. £1,058,406.

Of the quantity mentioned for 1872 there were 400,570 cwt. shipped from Spain, 176,500 cwt. from Asiatic Turkey, and the remainder from other countries.[649] It is stated that Greece, in 1874, exported about 1⅓ millions of cwt., value £28,000,000; much of this was shipped to England.

[648] _Berichte der deutsch. chem. Gesellsch. zu Berlin_, iv. (1871) 442.

[649] _Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom._

=Uses=—Raisins are an ingredient of Compound Tincture of Cardamoms and of Tincture of Senna. They have no medicinal properties, and are only used for the sake of the saccharine matter they impart.[650]

ANACARDIACEÆ.

MASTICHE.

_Mastix_, _Resina Mastiche_; _Mastich_; F. _Mastic_; G. _Mastix_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Pistacia Lentiscus_ L., the lentisk, is a diœcious evergreen, mostly found as a shrub a few feet high; but when allowed to attain its full growth, it slowly acquires the dimensions of a small tree having a dense head of foliage. It is a native of the Mediterranean shores from Syria to Spain, and is found in Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries. In some parts of Italy it is largely cut for fuel.

Mastich is collected in the northern part of the island of Scio, which was long regarded as the only region in the world capable of affording it. Experiments made in 1856 by Orphanides[651] have proved that excellent mastich might be easily obtained in other islands of the Archipelago, and probably also in Continental Greece. The same botanist remarks that the trees yielding mastich in Scio are exclusively _male_.

=History=—Mastich has been known from a very remote period, and is mentioned by Theophrastus,[652] who lived in the 4th century before the Christian era. Both Dioscorides and Pliny notice it as a production of the island of Chio, the modern Scio.

Avicenna[653] described (about the year 1000) two sorts of mastich, the white or Roman (i.e. _Mediterranean_ or _Christian_), and the dark or Nabathæan,—the latter probably one of the Eastern forms of the drug mentioned at p. 165.

Benjamin of Tudela,[654] who visited the island of Scio when travelling to the East about A.D. 1160-1173, also refers to it yielding mastich, which in fact has always been one of its most important productions, and from the earliest times intimately connected with its history.

Mastich was prescribed in the 13th century by the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai” as an ingredient of ointments.

[650] The amount of this is very small. On macerating crushed raisins in proof spirit in the proportion of 2 oz. to a pint, we found each fluid ounce of the tincture so obtained to afford by evaporation to dryness 28 grains of a dark viscid sugary extract.

[651] Heldreich, _Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands_, Athen, 1862. 61.

[652] _Hist. Plant._ lib. ix. c. 1.

[653] Lib. ii. c. 462.

[654] Wright, _Early Travels in Palestine_, 1848. 77. (Bohn’s series).

In the middle ages the mastich of Scio was held as a monopoly by the Greek emperors, one of whom, Michael Paleologus in 1261, permitted the Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus II. conceded in 1304 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, a rich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia (the ancient Phocæa), north-west of Smyrna, for ten years, renouncing all tribute during that period. The concession was very lucrative, a large revenue being derived from the _Contrata del Mastico_ or Mastich district: and the Zaccaria family, taking advantage of the weakness of the emperor, determined to hold it as long as possible. In fact they made themselves the real sovereigns of Scio and of some of the adjacent islands, and retained their position until expelled by Andronicus III. in 1329.[655]

The island was retaken by the Genoese under Simone Vignosi in 1346; and then by a remarkable series of events became the property of an association called the _Maona_ (the Arabic word for subsidy or reinforcement). Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled themselves in this corporation and settled in the island of Scio; and in order to express the community of interest that governed their proceedings, some of them relinquished their family names and assumed the general name of _Giustiniani_.[656] This extraordinary society played a part exactly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa it had its “_Officium Chii_”; it had its own constitution and mint, and it engaged in wars with the emperors of Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks, who in turn attacked and ravaged the mastich island and adjacent possessions.

The Giustinianis regulated very strictly the culture of the lentisk and the gathering and export of its produce, and cruelly punished all offenders. The annual export of the drug was 300 to 400 quintals,[657] which were immediately assigned to the four regions with which the Maona chiefly traded. These were _Romania_ (_i.e._ Greece, Constantinople and the Crimea), _Occidente_ (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), _Vera Turchia_ (Asia Minor), and _Oriente_ (Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 _lire_; in 1417, the price was fixed at 25 _lire_. In the 16th century, the whole income from the drug was 30,000 ducats (£13,750),[658] a large sum for that period.

In 1566, the Giustinianis definitively lost their beautiful island, the Turks under Piali Pasha taking it by force of arms under pretext that the customary tribute was not duly paid.[659] A few years before that event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon[660] who testifies from personal observation to the great care with which the lentisk was cultivated by the inhabitants.

[655] Friar Jordanus who visited Scio _circa_ 1330 (?) noticed the production of mastich, and also the loss of the island by Martino Zaccaria.—_Mirabilia descripta, or Wonders of the East_, edited by Col. Yule for the Hakluyt Society, 1863.

[656] Probably partly for the reason that a Palazzo Giustiniani in Genoa had become the property of the Society. In the little “Piazza Giustiniani,” near the cathedral of San Lorenzo, that palace may still be seen, but there is only a large view of the island of Scio which would remind of the Maona. I was told in 1874 by Sig. Canale, the historian of Genoa, that he thought it doubtful that the _Officium Chii_ had resided in the said palace.—F. A. F..

[657] An incidental notice showing the value of the trade occurs in the letter of Columbus (himself a Genoese) announcing the result of his first voyage to the Indies. In stating what may be obtained from the island of Hispaniola, he mentions—gold and spices ... and _mastich_, hitherto found only in Greece in the island of Scio, and which the Signoria sells at its own price, as much as their Highnesses (Ferdinand and Isabella) shall command to be shipped. The letter bears date 15 Feb. 1493.—_Letters of Christobal Columbus_ (Hakluyt Society) 1870. p. 15.

[658] The ducat being reckoned at 9_s_. 2_d_.

[659] For further particulars respecting the history of Scio, the Maona, and the trade of the Genoese in the Levant, see Hopf in Ersch and Grubber’s _Encyclopädie_, vol. 68 (Leipzig, 1859) art. _Giustiniani_; also Heyd _Colonie commerciali degli Italiani in Oriente_ i. (1866).

[660] _Observations de plusieurs singularitez et choses mémorables trouvées en Grèce_, etc. Paris, 1554. liv. ii. ch. 8. p. 836.

When Tournefort[661] was at Scio in 1701, all the lentisk trees on the island were held to be the property of the Grand Signor, and if any land was sold, the sale did not include the lentisks that might be growing on it. At that time the mastich villages, about twenty in number, were required to pay 286 chests of mastich annually to the Turkish officers appointed to receive the revenue.

In the beginning of the present century, when Olivier[662] paid a visit to the island of Chios, he found 50,000 ocche (one occa = 2·82 lb. avdp. = 1·28 kilogrammes) or somewhat more to be the annual harvest of mastich.

The month of January, 1850, was memorable throughout Greece and the Archipelago for a frost of unparalleled severity which proved very destructive to the mastich trees of Scio, and occasioned a scarcity of the drug that lasted for many years.[663]

The foregoing statements show that for centuries past Scio or Chios was famed for this resin; there are however a few evidences proving that at least a little mastich used also to be collected in other islands. Amari[664] quoted an Arabic geographer of the 12th century speaking of “_il mastice di Pantellaria cavato da’ lentischi e lo storace odorifero_.” Pantellaria, Kossura of the ancients, is the small volcanic island south-west of Sicily, not far from Tunis. In a list enumerating the drugs to be met with in 1582 in the fair of Frankfurt[665] we find even mastich of _Cyprus_ quoted as superior to the common. Cyprian mastich again occurs in the pharmaceutical tariffs of 1612 and 1669 of the same city, and in many others of that time.[666]

The disuse into which mastich has fallen makes it difficult to understand its ancient importance; but a glance at the pharmacopœias of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries shows that it was an ingredient of a large number of compound medicines.[667]

=Secretion=—In the bark of the stems and branches of the mastich shrub, there are resin-ducts like those in the aromatic roots of _Umbelliferæ_ or _Compositæ_. In _Pistacia_ they may even be shown in the petioles. The wood is devoid of resin,[668] so that slight incisions are sufficient to provoke the resinous exudation, the bark being not very thick, and liable to scale off.

[661] _Voyage into the Levant_, i. (1718) 285.

[662] _Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman et la Perse_, ii. (Paris, 1801) 132-136.

[663] At Athens the mercury was for a short time at -10° C. (14° F.) In Scio, where the frost was probably quite as severe, though we have no exact data, the mischief to the lentisks varied with the locality, trees exposed to the north or growing at considerable elevations, being killed down to the base of the trunk, while those in more favoured positions suffered destruction only in some of their branches.

[664] _Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia_, iii. (1872) 787.

[665] Flückiger, _Documente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie_, Halle, 1876. 31.

[666] _Ibid._ 41. 65.

[667] Thus in the _London Pharmacopœia_ of 1632, mastich enters into 24 of the 37 different kinds of pill, besides which it is prescribed in troches and ointments.

[668] See Unger and Kotsehy, _Die Insel Cypern_, Wien, 1865. 424.

=Collection=—In Scio incisions are made about the middle of June in the bark of the stems and principal branches. From these incisions which are vertical and very close together, the resin speedily flows, and soon hardens and dries. After 15 to 20 days it is collected with much care in little baskets lined with white paper or clean cotton wool. The ground below the trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid on it that the droppings of resin may be saved uninjured by dirt. There is also some spontaneous exudation from the small branches which is of very fine quality. The operations are carried on by women and children and last for a couple of months. A fine tree may yield as much as 8 to 10 pounds of mastich.

The dealers in Scio distinguish three or four qualities of the drug, of which the two finer are called κυλιστὸ and ϕλισκάρι, that collected from the ground πῆττα, and the worst of all ϕλοῦδα.[669]

=Description=—The best sort of mastich consists of roundish tears about the size of small peas, together with pieces of an oblong or pear-shaped form. They are of a pale yellow or slightly greenish tint darkening by age, dusty and slightly opaque on the surface but perfectly transparent within. The mastich of late imported has been washed; the tears are no longer dusty, but have a glassy transparent appearance. Mastich is brittle, has a conchoidal fracture, a slight terebinthinous balsamic odour. It speedily softens in the mouth, and may be easily masticated and kneaded between the teeth, in this respect differing from sandarac, a tear of which breaks to powder when bitten.

Inferior mastich is less transparent, and consists of masses of larger size and less regular shape, often contaminated with earthy and vegetable impurities.

The sp. gr. of selected tears of mastich is about 1·06. They soften at 99° C. but do not melt below 108°.

Mastich dissolves in half its weight of pure warm acetone and then deviates the ray of polarized light to the right. On cooling, the solution becomes turbid. It dissolves slowly in 5 parts of oil of cloves, forming even in the cold a clear solution; it is but little soluble in glacial acetic acid or in benzol.

=Chemical Composition=—Mastich is soluble to the extent of about 90 per cent in cold alcohol; the residue, which has been termed _Masticin_ or _Beta-resin of Mastich_, is a translucent, colourless, tough substance, insoluble in boiling alcohol or in solution of caustic alkali, but dissolving in ether or oil of turpentine. According to Johnston, it is somewhat less rich in oxygen than the following.

The soluble portion of mastich, called _Alpha-resin of Mastich_, possesses acid properties, and like many other resins has the formula C₂₀H₃₂O₃. Hartsen[670] asserts that it can be obtained in crystals. Its alcoholic solution is precipitated by an alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead. Mastich contains a very little volatile oil.

[669] Heldreich (and Orphanides) _Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands_, Athen, 1862, 60.

[670] _Berichte der deutschen chem. Gesellsch._ 1876. 316.

=Commerce=—Mastich still forms the principal revenue of Scio, from which island the export in 1871 was 28,000 lb. of _picked_, and 42,000 lb. of _common_. The market price of picked mastich was equal to 6_s_. 10_d_. per lb.—that of common 2_s_. 10_d_. The superior quality is sent to Turkey, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste, Vienna, and Marseilles, and a small quantity to England. The common sort is employed in the East in the manufacture of _raki_ and other cordials.[671]

=Uses=—Mastich is not now regarded as possessing any important therapeutic virtues, and as a medicine is becoming obsolete. Even in varnish making it is no longer employed as formerly, its place being well supplied by less costly resins, such for example as dammar.

=Varieties=—There is found in the Indian bazaars a kind of mastich which though called _Mustagi-rúmí_ (Roman mastich), is not imported from Europe but from Kabul, and is the produce of _Pistacia Khinjuk_ Stocks, and the so-called _P. cabulica_ St. trees growing all over Sind, Belúchistan and Kabul.[672] This drug, of which the better qualities closely approximate to the mastich of Scio, sometimes appears in the European market under the name of _East Indian_ or _Bombay Mastich_. We find that when dissolved in half its weight of acetone or benzol, it deviates the ray of light to the right.

The solid resin of the Algerian form of _P. Terebinthus_ L., known as _P. atlantica_ Desf., is collected and used as mastich by the Arab tribes of Northern Africa.[673]

TEREBINTHINA CHIA

_Terebinthina Cypria_; _Chian or Cyprian Turpentine_; F. _Térébenthine ou Baume de Chio ou de Chypres_; G. _Chios Terpenthin_, _Cyprischer Terpenthin_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Pistacia Terebinthus_ L. (P. _atlantica_ Desf., _P. palæstina_ Boiss., _P. cabulica_ Stocks), a tree 20 to 40 feet or more in height, in some countries only a shrub, common on the islands and shores of the Mediterranean as well as throughout Asia Minor, extending, as _P. palæstina_, to Syria and Palestine; and eastward, as _P. cabulica_, to Belúchistan and Afghanistan. It is found under the form called _P. atlantica_ in Northern Africa, where it grows to a large size, and in the Canary Islands.

These several forms are mostly regarded as so many distinct species; but after due consideration and the examination of a large number of specimens both dried and living, we have arrived at the conclusion that they may fairly be united under a single specific name. The extreme varieties certainly present great differences of habit, as anyone would observe who had compared _Pistacia Terebinthus_ as the straggling bush which it is in Languedoc and Provence, with the noble umbrageous tree it forms in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. But the different types are united by so many connecting links, that we have felt warranted in dissenting from the opinion usually held respecting them.

On the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus, a kind of galls is produced, which we shall briefly notice in our article Gallæe halepenses.

[671] Consul Cumberbatch, _Report on Trade of Smyrna_ for 1871.—_Raki_, derived from the Turkish word _sâqiz_, for mastich, which, strange to say, would appear to have its home on the Baltic. In the vocabularies of the Old-Prussian idiom “sachis” is found meaning resin.—Blau, _Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellsch._, xxix. 582.

[672] Powell, _Economic Products of the Punjab_, Roorkee, 1868. 411.

[673] Guibourt, _Hist. d. Drog._ iii. (1850) 458; Armieux, _Topographie médicale du Sahara_, Paris, 1866. 58.

=History=—The terebinth was well known to the ancients; it is the τέρμινθος of Theophrastus, τερέβινθος of other authors, and the _Alah_ of the Old Testament.[674] Among its products, the kernels were regarded by Dioscorides as unwholesome, though agreeable in taste. By pressing them, the original _Oil of Turpentine_, τερεβίνθινον ἔλαιον, a mixture of essential and fat oil was obtained, as it is in the East to the present day. The resinous juice of the stem and branches, the true, primitive turpentine, ῤητίνη τερμινθίνη, was celebrated as the finest of all analogous products, and preferred both to mastich and the pinic resins. To the latter however the name of turpentine was finally applied.[675]

=Collection=—The resinous juice is secreted in the bark, according to Unger,[676] and Marchand,[677] in special cells precisely as mastich in _P. Lentiscus_. That found in commerce is collected in the island of Scio. To some extent it exudes spontaneously, yet in greater abundance after incisions made in the stems and branches. This is done in spring, and the resin continues to flow during the whole summer; but the quantity is so small that not more that 10 or 11 ounces are obtained from a large tree in the course of a year. The turpentine, hardened by the coolness of the night, is scraped from the stem down which it has flowed, or from flat stones placed at the foot of the tree to receive it. As it is, when thus collected, always mixed with foreign substances, it is purified to some extent by straining through small baskets, after having been liquefied by exposure to the sun.

When Tournefort[678] visited Scio in 1701, the island was said to produce scarcely 300 okes or ocche (one occa = 2·82 lb. avdp.); a century later Olivier[679] stated, that the turpentine was becoming very scarce, 200 ocche only, or even less, being the annual yield. It was then carefully collected by means of little earthen vessels tied to the incised stems. The trade is asserted to be now almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews, who dispose of the drug in the interior part of the Turkish Empire.[680]

=Description=—A specimen collected by Maltass near Smyrna in 1858 was, after ten years, of a light yellowish colour, scarcely fluid though perfectly transparent, nearly of the odour of melted colophony or mastich, and without much taste. We found it readily soluble in spirit of wine, amylic alcohol, glacial acetic acid, benzol, or acetone, the solution in each case being very slightly fluorescent. The alcoholic solution reddens litmus, and is neither bitter nor acrid. Two parts of this genuine turpentine dissolved in one of acetone deviate a ray of polarized light 7° to the right[681] in a column 50 mm. long.

[674] Genesis xii. 6, where the word is rendered in our version _plain_.

[675] Further historical information on the Terebinth may be found in Hehn’s _Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere_, Berlin, 1877. 336.

[676] Unger u. Kotschy, _die Insel Cypern_, 1865. 361. 424.

[677] _Revision du groupe des Anacardiacées._ Paris, 1869. 150. Plate iii. shows the resiniferous ducts of a branch two years old.

[678] _Voyage into the Levant_, i. (1718) 287.

[679] _Voy. dans l’Empire Othoman_, etc., ii. (1801) 136.

[680] Maltass, _Pharm. Journ._ xvii. (1856) 540.

[681] A solution of mastich made in the same proportion deviates 3° to the right.

Chian turpentine as found in commerce and believed to be genuine, is a soft solid, becoming brittle, by exposure to the air; viewed in mass it appears opaque and of a dull brown hue. If pressed while warm between two slips of glass, it is seen to be transparent, of a yellowish-brown, and much contaminated by various impurities in a state of fine division. It has an agreeable, mild terebinthinous odour and very little taste. The whitish powder with which old Chian turpentine becomes covered, shows no trace of crystalline structure when examined under the microscope.

=Chemical Composition=—Chian turpentine consists of resin and essential oil. The former is probably identical with the _Alpha-resin_ of mastich. The _Beta-resin_ or _Masticin_ appears to be absent, for we find that Chian turpentine deprived of its essential oil by a gentle heat, dissolves entirely (impurities excepted) in alcohol sp. gr. 0·815, which is by no means the case with mastich.

The essential oil which we obtained by distilling with water 64 ounces of Chian turpentine of authentic origin, amounted to nearly 14½ per cent. It has the odour of the drug; sp. gr. 0·869; boiling point 161° C.; it deviates the ray of polarized light 12·1° to the right. In common with turpentine oils of the _Coniferæ_, it contains a small amount of an oxygenated oil, and is therefore vividly attacked by sodium. When this reaction is over and the oil is again distilled, it boils at 157° C. and has a sp. gr. of 0·862. It has now a more agreeable odour, resembling a mixture of cajuput, mace, and camphor, and nearly the same rotatory power (11·5° to the right). By saturation with dry hydrochloric acid, it yields a solid compound after some weeks. After treatment with sodium and rectification, the oil was found[682] to consist of C 88·75, H 11·40 per cent., which is the composition of oil of turpentine.

=Uses=—Chian Turpentine appears to have exactly the properties of the pinic turpentines; in British medicine it is almost obsolete. In Greece it is sometimes added to wine or used to flavour cordials, in the same manner as turpentine of the pine, or mastich.

GALLÆ CHINENSES SEU JAPONICÆ.

=Botanical Origin=—The plant which bears this important kind of gall, is _Rhus semialata_ Murray (_Rh. Bucki-amela_ Roxb.), a tree attaining 30 to 40 feet, common in Northern India, China and Japan, ascending in the outer Himalaya and the Kasia hills to elevations of 2,500 to 6,000 feet.[683]

=History=—In China these galls are probably known and used both medicinally and in dyeing since very long; they are mentioned in the herbal Puntsaou, written in the middle of the 16th century. They also occur in Cleyer’s “Specimen medicinæ sinicæ,” Frankfort, 1682, No. 225, under the name _u poi çu_.[684] Kämpfer[685] also mentions a tree “Baibokf, vulgo Fusi,” growing on the hills, the pinnate leaves of which he found often provided with an excrescence: “Ἐπίϕνσι foliorum informi, tuberosa, multiplici, tenui, dura, cava, Gallæ nostratis usu praestante.” No doubt this refers to the galls under notice; they began to be imported into Europe about 1724, and are noticed by Geoffroy[686] as _Oreilles des Indes_, but they seem to have soon disappeared from the market. Pereira directed attention to them in 1844, since which time they have formed a regular and abundant article of import both from China and Japan.

[682] From analysis performed in my laboratory by Dr. Kraushaar.—F. A. F.

[683] Wight, _Icones Plantar. Indiæ orientalis_, ii. (Madras, 1843) tab. 561, gives a good figure.

[684] Hanbury, _Science Papers_, 266.

[685] _Amœnitates exoticæ_, 1712. 895.

[686] _Mém. de l’Académie royale des Sciences_, Paris, 1724. 324.—Also Du Halde, _Description de l’Empire de la Chine_, iii. (La Haye, 1736) 615-625. “Des Ou Poey tsé.” The author quotes numerous medicinal applications for these galls.

=Formation=—Chinese galls are vesicular protuberances formed on the leafstalks and branches of the above-mentioned tree, by the puncture of an insect, identified and figured by Doubleday[687] as a species of _Aphis_, and subsequently named provisionally by Jacob Bell[688] _A. chinensis_. We have no account by any competent observer of their growth; and as to their development, we can only imagine it from the analogous productions seen in Europe. According to Doubleday, it is probable that the female aphis punctures the upper surface of a leaf (more probably _leafstalk_), the result of the wound being the growth of a hollow expansion in the vegetable tissue. Of this cavity the creature takes possession and brings forth a progeny which lives by puncturing the inner surface of their home, thus much increasing the tendency to a morbid expansion of the soft growing tissue in an outward direction. Meanwhile the neck of the sac-like gall thickens, the aperture contracts and finally closes, imprisoning all the inmates. Here they live and multiply until, as in the case of the pistacia gall of Europe, the sac ruptures and allows of their escape. This, we may imagine, takes place at the period when, after some generations all wingless and perhaps all female (for the female aphis produces for several generations without impregnation), a winged generation is brought forth of both sexes. These may then fly to other spots, and deposit eggs for a further propagation of their race.

The galls are collected when their green colour is changing into yellow; they are then scalded.[689]

=Description=—The galls are light and hollow, varying in length from 1 to 2½ inches, and of extremely diverse and irregular form. The simplest are somewhat egg-shaped, the smaller end being attached to the leafstalk; but the form is rarely so regular, and more often the body of the gall is distorted by numerous knobby or horn-like protuberances or branches; or the gall consists of several lobes uniting in their lower part and gradually attenuated to the point by which the excrescence is attached to the leaf.[690] But though the form is thus variable, the structure of these bodi4s is very characteristic. They are striated towards the base, and completely covered on other parts with a thick, velvety, grey down, which rubbed off on the prominences, displays the reddish-brown colour of the shell itself. The latter is ⅒ to ¹/₂₀ of an inch in thickness, translucent and horny, but brittle with a smooth and shining fracture. It is rather smoother on the inner surface and of lighter colour than on the outer.

[687] _Pharm. Journ._ vii. (1848) 310.

[688] _Ibid._ x. (1851) 128.

[689] Stanisl. Julien et P. Champion, _Industries anc. et modernes de l’Empire chinois_, 1869. 95.

[690] We have once met with galls imported from Shanghai which differed from ordinary Chinese galls in not being horned, but all of an elongated ovoid form, often pointed at the upper end, and having moreover a strong _cheesy_ smell. They may be derived from _Distylium racemosum_ S. et Z., though they do not perfectly accord with the depressed pear-shaped forms figured by Siebold and Zuccarini (_Flora Japonica_, tab. 94).

The galls when broken are generally found to contain a white, downy-looking substance, together with the minute, dried-up bodies of the killed insect.[691]

The drug as imported from Japan is usually a little smaller and paler; it mostly fetches a better price in the market.

=Microscopic Structure=—The tissue of the galls is made up of thin-walled, large cells irregularly traversed by small vascular bundles and laticiferous vessels. The latter are mostly not branched. The parenchyme is loaded with lumps of tannic matter and starch, the latter having mostly lost by the treatment with boiling water its granular appearance. The epidermis of the galls is covered with little tapering hairs, consisting each of 1-5 cells, to which is due the velvety down of the drug.

=Chemical Composition=—Chinese or Japanese galls contain about 70 per cent. of a tannic acid, which has been first shown by Stein in 1849 to be identical with that derived from oak galls (see Gallæ halepenses), the so-called _gallo-tannic_ or common tannic acid.[692] It is remarkable that this substance, which is by no means widely distributed, is also present in _Rhus coriaria_, a species indigenous in the Mediterranean region. Its leaves and shoots are the well-known dyeing and tanning material _Sumach_.

Stein, however, pointed out at the same time, that in Chinese galls gallo-tannic acid is accompanied by a small amount, about 4 per cent., of a different tannic matter.

=Commerce=—At present the supplies arrive chiefly from Hankow, from which great trading city the export, in 1872, was no less than 30,949 peculs, equal to 36,844 cwt; 21,611 peculs, value 136,214 taels (one tael about 6_s._) in 1874. In 1877 all China exported not more than 17,515 peculs. A little is also shipped from Canton and Ningpo.[693] The quantity imported from China into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 8621 cwts., valued at £20,098. In the China trade returns, the drug is always miscalled “Nut galls,” or “gallnuts.” Only those called “Wu-pei-tze” are the galls under examination. There are also oak galls exported from China resembling those from Western Asia. Japanese galls, “Kifushi,” are shipped in increasing quantities at Hiogo.[694]

=Uses=—The galls under notice are employed, chiefly in Germany, for the manufacture of tannic acid, gallic acid, and pyrogallol.

[691] See also Schenk, in Buchner’s _Repertorium für Pharm._ v. (1850) 26-27, or short abstract of that paper in the _Jahresbericht_ of Wiggers, 1850. 48.

[692] See also Stenhouse, _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, xi. (1862) 402.

[693] _Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports of China_, for 1872. 154; for 1874.

[694] Matsugata, _Le Japon à l’Exposition universelle_ (Paris, 1878) 116. 146.

LEGUMINOSÆ.

HERBA SCOPARII.

_Cacumina vel Summitates Scoparii_; _Broom Tops_; F. _Genêt à balais_; G. _Besenginster_, _Pfriemenkraut_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Cytisus Scoparius_ Link (_Spartium Scoparium_ L., _Sarothamnus vulgaris_ Wimmer), the Common Broom, a woody shrub, 3 to 6 feet high, grows gregariously in sandy thickets and uncultivated places throughout Great Britain, and Western and temperate Northern Europe. In continental Europe it is plentiful in the valley of the Rhine up to the Swiss frontier, in Southern Germany and in Silesia, but does not ascend the Alps, and is absent from many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, Polonia for instance. According to Ledebour, it is found in Central and Southern Russia and on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains. In Southern Europe its place is supplied by other species.

=History=—From the fact that this plant is chiefly a native of Western, Northern and Central Europe, it is improbable that the classical authors were acquainted with it; and for the same reason the remarks of the early Italian writers may not always apply to the species under notice. With this reservation, we may state that broom under the name _Genista_, _Genesta_, or _Genestra_ is mentioned in the earliest printed herbals, as that of Passau,[695] 1485, the _Hortus Sanitatis_, 1491, the _Great Herbal_ printed at Southwark in 1526, and others. It is likewise the Genista as figured and described by the German botanists and pharmacologists of the 16th century, like Brunfels, Fuchs, Tragus, Valerius Cordus (“Genista angulosa”) and others. Broom was used in ancient Anglo-Saxon medicine[696] as well as in the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai.” It had a place in the London Pharmacopœia of 1618, and has been included in nearly every subsequent edition. Hieronymus Brunschwyg gives[697] directions for distilling a water from the flowers, “_flores genestæ_”—a medicine which Gerarde relates was used by King Henry VIII. “against surfets and diseases thereof arising.”

Broom was the emblem of those of the Norman sovereigns of England descended from Geoffrey the “Handsome,” or “_Plantagenet_” count of Anjou (_obiit_ A.D. 1150), who was in the habit of wearing the common broom of his country, the “_planta genista_,” in his helmet.

=Description=—The Common Broom has numerous straight ascending wiry branches, sharply 5-angled and devoid of spines. The leaves, of which the largest are barely an inch long, consist of 3 obovate leaflets on a petiole of their own length. Towards the extremities of the twigs, the leaves are much scattered and generally reduced to a single ovate leaflet, nearly sessile. The leaves when young are clothed on both sides with long reddish hairs; these under the microscope are seen each to consist of a simple cylindrical thin-walled cell, the surface of which is beset with numerous extremely small protuberances.

[695] _Herbarius, Patavie_ 1485.

[696] Cockayne _Leechdoms_, &c., iii. (1866) 316.

[697] _De arte distillandi_, first edition 1500, Argentorati, cap. xv.

The large, bright yellow, odorous flowers, which become brown in drying, are mostly solitary in the axils of the leaves; they have a persistent campanulate calyx divided into two lips minutely toothed, and a long subulate style, curved round on itself. The legume is oblong compressed, 1½ to 2 inches long by about ½ an inch wide, fringed with hairs along the edge. It contains 10 to 12 olive-coloured albuminous seeds, the funicle of which is expanded into a large fleshy strophiole. They have a bitterish taste, and are devoid of starch.

The portion of the plant used in pharmacy is the younger herbaceous branches, which are required both fresh and dried. In the former state they emit when bruised a peculiar odour which is lost in drying. They have a nauseous bitter taste.

=Chemical Composition=—Stenhouse[698] discovered in broom tops two interesting principles, _Scoparin_, C₂₁H₂₂O₁₀, an indifferent or somewhat acid body, and the alkaloid _Sparteine_, C₁₅H₂₆N₂, the first soluble in water or spirit and crystallizing in yellowish tufts, the second a colourless oily liquid heavier than water and sparingly soluble in it, boiling at 288° C.

To obtain scoparin, a watery decoction of the plant is concentrated so as to form a jelly after standing for a day or two. This is then washed with a small quantity of cold water, dissolved in hot water and again allowed to repose. By repeating this treatment with the addition of a little hydrochloric acid, the chlorophyll may at length be separated and the scoparin obtained as a gelatinous mass, which dries as an amorphous, brittle, pale yellow, neutral substance, devoid of taste and smell. Its solution in hot alcohol deposits it partly in crystals and partly as jelly, which after drying are alike in composition. Hlasiwetz showed (1866) that scoparin when melted with potash is resolved, like kino or quercetin, into _Phloroglucin_, C₆H₆O₃, and _Protocatechuic Acid_, 2 C₇H₆O₄.

The acid mother-liquors from which scoparin has been obtained when concentrated and distilled with soda, yield besides ammonia a very bitter oily liquid, _Sparteine_. To obtain it pure, it requires to be repeatedly rectified, dried by chloride of calcium, and distilled in a current of dry carbonic acid. It is colourless, but becomes brown by exposure to light; it has at first an odour of aniline, but this is altered by rectification. Sparteine has a decidedly alkaline reaction and readily neutralises acids, forming crystallizable salts which are extremely bitter. Conine, nicotine, and sparteine are the only volatile alkaloids devoid of oxygen hitherto known to exist in the vegetable kingdom.

Mills[699] extracted sparteine simply by acidulated water which he concentrated and then distilled with soda. The distillate was then saturated with hydrochloric acid, evaporated to dryness, and submitted to distillation with potash. The oily sparteine thus obtained was dried by prolonged heating with sodium in a current of hydrogen, and finally rectified _per se_. Mills succeeded in replacing one or two equivalents of the hydrogen of sparteine by one or two of C₂H₅ (ethyl). From 150 lb. the (dried?) plant, he obtained 22 cubic centimetres of sparteine, which we may estimate as equivalent to about ½ per mille.

[698] _Phil. Trans._ 1851. 422-431.

[699] _Journ. of Chem. Soc._ xv. (1862) l.; Gmelin’s _Chem._ xvi. (1864) 282.

Stenhouse ascertained that the amount of sparteine and scoparin depends much on external conditions, broom grown in the shade yielding less than that produced in open sunny places. He states that shepherds are well aware of the shrub possessing narcotic properties, from having observed their sheep to become stupified and excited when occasionally compelled to eat it.

The experiments of Reinsch (1846) tend to show that broom contains a bitter crystallizible principle in addition to the foregoing. The seeds of the allied _Cytisus Laburnum L._ afford two highly poisonous alkaloids, _Cytisine_ and _Laburnine_, discovered by A. Husemann and Marmé in 1865.

=Uses=—A decoction of broom tops, made from the dried herb, is used as a diuretic and purgative. The juice of the fresh plant, preserved by the addition of alcohol, is also administered and is regarded as a very efficient preparation.

SEMEN FŒNI GRÆCI.

_Semen Fœnugræci; Fenugreek_; F. _Semences de Fenugrec_; G. _Bockshornsamen._

=Botanical Origin=—_Trigonella Fœnum græcum_ L., an erect, sub-glabrous, annual plant, 1 to 2 feet high, with solitary, subsessile, whitish flowers; indigenous to the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, in which it has been long cultivated, and whence it appears to have spread to India.

=History=—In the old Egyptian preparation _Kyphi_, an ingredient “Sebes or Sebtu” is mentioned, which is thought by Ebers to mean fenugreek. This plant was well known to the Roman writers on husbandry, as Porcius Cato (B.C. 234-149) who calls it _Fœnum Græcum_ and directs it to be sown as fodder for oxen. It is the τῇλις of Dioscorides and other Greek writers. Its mucilaginous seeds, “siliquæ” of the Roman peasants, were valued as an aliment and condiment for man, and as such are still largely consumed in the East. They were likewise supposed to possess many medicinal virtues, and had a place in the pharmacopœias of the last century.

The cultivation of fenugreek in Central Europe was encouraged by Charlemagne (A.D. 812), and the plant was grown in English gardens in the 16th century.

=Description=—The fenugreek plant has a sickle-shaped pod, 3 to 4 inches long, containing 10 to 20 hard, brownish-yellow seeds, having the smell and taste which is characteristic of peas and beans, with addition of a cumarin-or melilot-flavour.

The seeds are about ⅛ of an inch long, with a rhomboid outline, often shrivelled and distorted; they are somewhat compressed, with the hilum on the sharper edge, and a deep furrow running from it and almost dividing the seed into two unequal lobes. When the seed is macerated in warm water, its structure becomes easily visible. The testa bursts by the swelling of the internal membrane or endopleura, which like a thick gelatinous sac encloses the cotyledons and their very large hooked radicle.

=Microscopic Structure=—The most interesting structural peculiarity of this seed arises from the fact that the mucilage with which it abounds is not yielded by the cells of the epidermis, but by a loose tissue closely surrounding the embryo.[700]

=Chemical Composition=—The cells of the testa contain tannin; the cotyledons a yellow colouring matter, but no sugar. The air-dried seeds give off 10 per cent. of water at 100° C., and on subsequent incineration leave 7 per cent. of ash, of which nearly a fourth is phosphoric acid.

Ether extracts from the pulverized seeds 6 per cent. of a fœtid, fatty oil, having a bitter taste. Amylic alcohol removes in addition a small quantity of resin. Alcohol added to a concentrated aqueous extract, forms a precipitate of mucilage, amounting when dried to 28 per cent. Burnt with soda-lime, the seeds yielded to Jahns[701] 3·4 per cent. of nitrogen, equivalent to 22 per cent. of albumin. No researches have been yet made to determine the nature of the odorous principle.

=Production and Commerce=—Fenugreek is cultivated in Morocco, in the south of France near Montpellier, in a few places in Switzerland, in Alsace, and in some other provinces of the German and Austrian empires, as Thuringia and Moravia. It is produced on a far larger scale in Egypt, where it is known by the Arabic name _Hulba_, and whence it is exported to Europe and India. In 1873 it was stated that the profits of the European growers were much reduced by the seed being largely exported from Mogador and Bombay.

Under the Sanscrit name of _Methi_, which has passed, slightly modified, into several of the modern Indian languages, fenugreek is much grown in the plains of India during the cool season. In the year 1872-73, the quantity of seed exported from Sind to Bombay was 13,646 cwt., valued at £4,405.[702] From the port of Bombay there were shipped in the same year 9,655 cwt., of which only 100 cwt. are reported as for the United Kingdom.[703]

=Uses=—In Europe fenugreek as a medicine is obsolete, but the powdered seeds are still often sold by chemists for veterinary pharmacy and as an ingredient of curry powder. The chief consumption is, however, in the so-called _Cattle Foods_.

The fresh plant in India is commonly eaten as a green vegetable, while the seeds are extensively used by the natives in food and medicine.

[700] Figured by Lanessan in his French translation of the _Pharmacographia_, i. (1878) 345.

[701] Experiments performed in my laboratory in 1867.—F. A. F.

[702] _Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Sind_, for the year 1872-73, printed at Karachi, 1873. p. 36.

[703] _Annual Statement_, etc., Bombay, 1873. 89.

TRAGACANTHA.

_Gummi Tragacantha_; _Tragacanth_, _Gum Tragacanth_; _F. Gomme Adragante_; _G. Traganth_.

=Botanical Origin.=—Tragacanth is the gummy exudation from the stem of several pieces of _Astragalus_, belonging to the subgenus _Tragacantha_. The plants of this group are low perennial shrubs, remarkable for their leaves having a strong, persistent, spiny petiole. As the leaves and shoots are very numerous and regular, many of the species have the singular aspect of thorny hemispherical cushions, lying close on the ground; while others, which are those furnishing the gum, grow erect with a naked woody stem, and somewhat resemble furze bushes.

A few species occur in South-western Europe, others are found in Greece and Turkey; but the largest number are inhabitants of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia, Kurdistan and Persia. The tragacanth of commerce is produced in the last named countries, and chiefly, though not exclusively, by the following species[704]:—

1. _Astragalus adscendens_ Boiss. et Hausskr., a shrub attaining 4 feet in height, native, of the mountains of South-western Persia at an altitude of 9,000 to 10,000 feet. According to Haussknecht, it affords an abundance of gum.

2. _A. leioclados_ Boiss.

3. _A. brachycalyx_ Fisch., a shrub of 3 feet high, growing on the mountains of Persian Kurdistan, likewise affords tragacanth.

4. _A. gummifer_ Labill., a small shrub of wide distribution occurring on the Lebanon and Mount Hermon in Syria, the Beryt Dagh in Cataonia, the Arjish Dagh (Mount Argæus) near Kaisariyeh in Central Asia Minor, and in Armenia and Northern Kurdistan.

5. _A. microcephalus_ Willd., like the preceding a widely distributed species, extending from the south-west of Asia Minor to the north-east coast, and to Turkish and Russian Armenia. A specimen of this plant with incisions in the stem, was sent some years ago to the Pharmaceutical Society by Mr. Maltass of Smyrna. We received a large example of the same species, the stem of which is marked by old incisions, from the Rev. W. A. Farnsworth of Kaisariyeh, who states that tragacanth is collected from it on Mount Argæus.

6. _A. pycnocladus_ Boiss. et Haussk., nearly related to _A. microcephalus_; it was discovered on the high mountains of Avroman and Shahu in Persia by Professor Haussknecht, who states that it exudes tragacanth in abundance.

7. _A. stromatodes_ Bunge, growing at an elevation of 5,000 feet on the Akker Dagh range, near Marash in Northern Syria.

8. _A. kurdicus_ Boiss., a shrub 3 to 4 feet high, native of the mountains of Cilicia and Cappadocia, extending thence to Kurdistan. Haussknecht has informed us that from this and the last named species, the so-called _Aintab Tragacanth_ is chiefly obtained.

[704] As described in Boissier’s _Flora Orientalis_, ii. (1872). We have to thank Professor Haussknecht of Weimar for revising our list of species, and for some valuable information as to the localities in which the drug is produced.

Probably the drug is also to some extent collected from

9. _A. verus_ Olivier, in North-western Persia and Asia Minor.

Lastly as to Greece, tragacanth is also afforded by

10. _A. Parnassi_ Boiss., var. _cyllenea_, a small shrub found in abundance on the northern mountains of the Morea, which is stated by Heldreich[705] to be the almost exclusive source of the tragacanth collected about Vostizza and Patras.

=History=—Tragacanth has been known from a very early period. Theophrastus in the 3rd century B.C. mentioned Crete, the Peloponnesus and Media as its native countries. Dioscorides, who as a native of South-eastern Asia Minor was probably familiar with the plant, describes it correctly as a low spiny bush. The drug is mentioned by the Greek physicians Oribasius, Aëtius, and Paulus Ægineta (4th to 7th cent.), and by many of the Arabian writers on medicine. The abbreviated form of its name “Dragantum” already occurs in the book “Artis veterinariæ, seu mulomedicinæ” of Vegetius Renatus, who lived about A.D. 400. During the middle ages the gum was imported into Europe through the trading cities of Italy, as shown in the statutes of Pisa,[706] A.D. 1305, where it is mentioned as liable to impost.

Pierre Belon, the celebrated French naturalist and traveller, saw and described, about 1550, the collecting of tragacanth in the northern part of Asia Minor; and Tournefort in 1700 observed on Mount Ida in Candia the singular manner in which the gum is exuded from the living plant.[707]

=Secretion=—It has been shown by H. von Mohl[708] and by Wigand[709] that tragacanth is produced by metamorphosis of the cell membrane, and that it is not simply the dried juice of the plant.

The stem of a gum-bearing _Astragalus_ cut transversely, exhibits concentric annual layers which are extremely tough and fibrous, easily tearing lengthwise into thin filaments. These inclose a central column, radiating from which are numerous medullary rays, both of very singular structure, for instead of presenting a thin-walled parenchyme, they appear to the naked eye as a hard translucent gum-like mass, becoming gelatinous in water. Examined microscopically, this gummy substance is seen to consist not of dried mucilage, but of the very cells of the pith and medullary rays, in process of transformation into tragacanth. The transformed cells, if their transformation has not advanced too far, exhibit the angular form and close packing of parenchyme-cells, but their walls are much incrassated and evidently consist of numerous very thin strata.

That these cells are but ordinary parenchyme-cells in an altered state, is proved by the pith and medullary rays of the smaller branches which present no such unusual structure. Mohl was able to trace this change from the period in which the original cell membrane could be still easily distinguished from its incrusting layers, to that in which the transformation had proceeded so far that it was impossible to perceive any defined cells, the whole substance being metamorphosed into a more or less uniform mucilaginous mass.

[705] _Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands_, Athen, 1862. 71.

[706] Bonaini, _Statuti inediti della città di Pissa dal xii. al xiv. secolo_, iii. (1857) 106. 114.

[707] _Voyage into the Levant_, Lond. (1718) 43.

[708] _Botanische Zeitung_, 1857. 33; _Pharm. Journ._ xviii. (1859) 370.

[709] Pringsheim’s _Jahrbücher f. wissenchaftl. Botanik_, iii. (1861) 117.

The tension under which this peculiar tissue is held in the interior of the stem is very remarkable in _Astragalus gummifer_ which one of us had the opportunity of observing on the Lebanon in 1860.[710] On cutting off a branch of the thickness of the finger, there immediately exudes from the centre a stream of soft, solid tragacanth, pushing itself out like a worm, to the length of ¾ of an inch, sometimes in the course of half an hour; while much smaller streams (or none at all) are emitted from the medullary rays of the thick bark.

=Production=—The principal localities in Asia Minor in which tragacanth is collected are the district of Angora, the capital of the ancient Galatia; Isbarta, Buldur and Yalavatz,[711] north of the gulf of Adalia; the range of the Ali Dagh between Tarsous and Kaisariyeh, and the mountainous country eastward as far as the valley of the Euphrates. The drug is also gathered in Armenia on the elevated range of the Bingol Dagh south of Erzerum; throughout Kurdistan from Mush for 500 miles in a south-eastern direction as far as the province of Luristan in Persia, a region including the high lands south of lake Van, and west of lake Urumiah. It is likewise produced in Persia farther east, over an area 300 miles long by 100 to 150 miles broad, between Gilpaigon and Kashan, southward to the Mahomed Senna range north-east of Shiraz, thus including the lofty Bakhtiyari mountains.

As to the way in which the gum is obtained, it appears from the statements of Maltass, that in July and August the peasants clear away the earth from around the stem of the shrub, and then make in the bark several incisions, from which during the following 3 or 4 days the gum exudes and dries in flakes. In some localities they also puncture the bark with the point of a knife. Whilst engaged in these operations, they pick from the shrubs whatever gum they find exuded naturally.

Hamilton,[712] who saw the shrub in 1836 on the hills about Buldur, says “the gum is obtained by making an incision in the stem near the root, and cutting through the pith, when the sap exudes in a day or two and hardens.”

Formerly the peasants were content to collect the naturally exuded gum, no pains being taken to make incisions, whereby alone white flaky gum is obtained. We have in fact heard an old druggist state, that he remembered the first appearance of this fine kind of tragacanth in the London market. According to Professor Haussknecht, whose observations relate chiefly to Kurdistan and Persia, the tragacanth collected in these regions is mostly a spontaneous exudation.

Tragacanth is brought to Smyrna, which is a principal market for it, from the interior, in bags containing about 2 quintals each, by native dealers who purchase it of the peasants. In this state it is a very crude article, consisting of all the gatherings mixed together. To fit it for the European markets, some of which have their special requirements, it has to be sorted into different qualities, as _Flaky or Leaf Gum, Vermicelli_ and _Common_ or _Sorts_; this sorting is performed almost exclusively by Spanish Jews.

[710] Hanbury, _Science Papers_, 29.

[711] _Pharm. Journ._ xv. (1856) 18.

[712] _Researches in Asia Minor, Pontus and Armenia_, i. (1842) 492.

=Description=—The peculiar conditions under which tragacanth exudes, arising from the pressure of the surrounding tissues and the power of solidifying a large amount of water, will account to some extent for the strange forms in which this exudation occurs.